Packing Madness

Tomorrow is moving day. It will be my first UHaul experience. They're forecasting rain, it's Vancouver after all!

For the past few weeks I've been "packing". For the past couple days I've been packing in earnest. How did I ever accumulate so much stuff? And why do I own so many books? I shudder to think that this is just part of my collection, and that most of them I bought in Vancouver over the past couple of years. Yikes!

I'm proud to report though that most my stuff was not purchased in the last year. I've been getting better. There was only one suitcase full of clothing and books to donate. Not bad.

My aunt E. bought 12 boxes for me, 6 smaller ones, 6 larger ones. At first, I thought that it'd never be enough, but in the end, that was exactly right. Most were full of kitchen supplies, bathroom supplies, and books. The last two, "odds and ends" were full of things that I didn't even remember that I owned!

My new place is a two bedroom, my friend C. is coming back from a year in Nelson to go to Librarian college and will be my roommate. The place is smaller, but I remember thinking that it had good potential last time I saw it. Wood floors, full size windows, a decent size bedroom, the only problem is the small kitchen, but we'll make it work! I hope that it's an amazing place, that we set it up well, and that I don't need to move for at least another 2 years! In the last 5 years since I've left home, I've changed apartments 5 times, once a year, plus I've moved to camp for the summer 3 times, and across the country once. It's getting old fast, especially since furniture has been involved!

Camping: Manning Park

Last weekend I got to go camping again, and explore a new part of B.C. : Manning Park! It's located east of Vancouver, about 2hrs 30mins away, just past Hope. (I just wanted to mention that there was a city called Hope in B.C.!)

It was great to get away. I had been working long hours in the workshop all week, and then marking the final exam on Friday, so getting out of the city with B. on Saturday was heavenly. She took Monday off, and I skipped out on, well, my office mates? so we got to have a long weekend in the forest. We arrived in the early afternoon and set up the tent in the best spot (according to us). It was surrounded by large trees, right next to the river, which gave us a false sense of seclusion (on Monday morning, the couple in the spot beside us blasted music while taking down their tent, shattering our seclusion idea.) We then headed out to Lightning Lake for a nice hike around the lake, with a short visit over to the next lake: Flash Lake. Once back to the car, B. braved the weather and went for a quick dip in the lake. Very impressive to me, I was chilly just waiting for her to get out!

Back at the campsite, we decided to put up the tarp that I had thoughtfully borrowed from J. We realized quickly that our "ideal" camping spot was not ideal for putting up a tarp. Lots of big trees meant no branches close to the ground. We wanted to cover the picnic table first since we didn't want to have to cook in the rain. We succeeded with the help of a stick and many tosses to secure two corners of the tarp, but when we held the other two corners out realized that the tarp covered, well, the ground next to the table. So we gave up on that idea and moved on to trying to cover the tent, which looked easier to accomplish. Here was the result:

Impressive, I know.

Luckily my tent was up to the challenge and kept us dry!

The next day, it rained off and on. I realized early that I had forgotten my rain coat, and so had to buy a 1$ emergency poncho, which I then referred to as a human condom for the rest of the trip. We drove up to the top of one of the mountains in the park, and went for a hike along the Heather Trail. Now this was my kind of hiking! Mostly flat, with an amazing view for most of the hike! Lots of flowers, trees, berries (no bears!), and beautiful alpine meadows, which is what Manning Park is famous for.

Monday was going home day. It was sunny and warm, and we were both reluctant to get back to the city too early. We took a detour in Chilliwack and went swimming in Cultus Lake, one of the rare warm lakes in B.C. since it isn't a glacier lake. We found a nice falsely secluded (again) spot along the road where we could go down to the lake and have a swim without paying for parking. It was warm, and lovely to swim in non-salty water! Afterwards, we stopped for ice cream, the cherry on the sunday of a great weekend!

Inception

Wow! It's not often that I'm willing to pay to see a movie twice! But Inception was worth it, especially the second time around. (As a side note, I went to see How to tame your dragon twice also, but the second time wasn't as good as the first, sadly.)

So if you haven't seen Inception yet, don't read this post. Spoilers!

After my first screening, my brain was reeling for hours, days, trying to figure out limbo, time frames, dreamers vs. subjects, etc. I was also convinced that Leonardo was still dreaming in the last scene. If fact, I was convinced that he'd been dreaming for a lot of the movie... and this was somewhat disappointing to me. It reminded me of elementary school, when we were assigned a short story essay and were told to make the ending surprising. I remember making my "surprise" ending a wake-up scene... gasp! It was all a dream! My teacher was not impressed and wrote in the margin "pas très original, tu peux faire mieux!" and I was devastated. So ended my short story career. So needless to say that though Sh. and I (Sh. went to see both screenings with me) were both convinced that Leonardo was sleeping at the end, I didn't want that to be the case.

So round two! This time it was Sh. once more with her husband and my other friend So. (Sh.'s husband's name also starts with an S... ggrrr) This time around I found the shooting scenes rather long, and the whole winter world sequence hilarious: who thought of snowmobiles pulling skiers with guns would be a good idea? Still, a lot more things made sense, and best of all, all three of us who saw it for a second time were convinced that in fact Leonardo was awake in the end. :D This made me happy. Why did we come to that conclusion? For one, the kids were older looking, and So. was convinced that their clothing was somewhat different than the first time. Also, I thought that their voices on the phone sounded older too. For another, we came to the conclusion that Ellen Page and Leonardo did not go into limbo together, but into his dream, which brought them into his old limbo. Then after Ellen Page leaves on the kick, Leonardo dies because all the buildings were falling, and then falls into limbo. This explains why he ends up on the beach again, and why the Japanese guy is so old and Leonardo is not. And its at that point, after the sedatives in the plane wear off, that they all wake up! I don't know if this makes sense, but that's what I'm going with!

More Heat

Sooo warm. In fact, this morning at 11am, I was over at J. and V.'s and their thermostat read 38.8C when we left to go to Stanley Park for an Indian Festival. Biking wasn't too bad, and we staked out a good spot in the shade for the parade (Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Hare Hare, Krishna Krishna, and repeat!)... the real heat came when we got to the park, and saw the line for food. The website had boasted "Free Vegetarian Feast for 20000 People", that's a lot of food for a lot of people. The line was long and in the sun. But the food was good, and the wait was worth it.

We spent a little time under a tent, listening to chants and songs, and one of the young singers fell unconscious due to heat and dehydration I think. It was quite scary. Luckily he seemed fine after drinking 3 bottles of water. Lots of water drinking for us after that! V. and I then got out hands painted with henna, very pretty! This meant that we had to wait an hour before swimming, so back to the shade. After waiting like patient adults for the hour to elapse, we put clover oil on to protect the henna and headed to the ocean. The paint seemed to be coming off in the water despite our wait, so V. and I did some crazy acrobatics to keep our hands out of the water and still cool off.

After the very welcome dip, J. and V. headed off to yet another music festival somewhere else in the city (Vancouver in the summer is crazy busy and simply an incredible place to be. For example, last Friday B. and I decided to go to Wreck Beach for the afternoon and on the way there stumbled upon an Anime Convention at UBC! Lots of amazing costumes!!). I was lazy and decided to get more free food and enjoy Second Beach for a bit before biking home.

In other news, I tried making Kettle Corn for a snack tonight, and failed to read the instruction to put the sugar on before the popcorn started to pop and thought I had read to add it just after the first few pops... Needless to say that I was attacked by flying, burning popcorn soon after lifting the lid!

"Adult" sushi

Tonight was one of the last nights that M. will have in Vancouver before moving to Montreal to do her Ph.D., I know, a doctorate, crazy. Anyways, after much deliberation, it was decided that she was simply too busy for a big get together, so we just went for sushi with S. at a nice place near Gilmore station.

Now, it's really REALLY hot in Vancouver today, and as a Vancouverite I'm just not used to heat anymore. Walking from the skytrain home was brutal, and the idea of food when I was that hot wasn't too appealing. Still, there we were, sitting with menus, and I was trying to decide on what to eat and whether to "force" ourselves to be piggy or not (I had swum almost 3kms in kits pool earlier), when S. was like "I just want nigiri, is that weird?". I agreed that that is what I also had a hankering for, well that and these huge rolls they call house rolls that have simply everything inside them and are super yummy! So that's what we ordered. Which led S. to comment that we had "graduated" to "adult" sushi. Yum! Is all I have to say to that!

Posters

Just when you thought you were done with making pretty, colored, posters....

In elementary school, you have the colored paper, crayons, hand-drawn pictures.

In high school, you upgrade to likable color schemes, still on the colored paper, maybe some graphs or pictures printed off from the internet, bold, beautiful hand written titles in colored block letters.

In undergrad, you think you're done. It's a tease, you join a club, they have a bake sale, and out come the colored paper and crayons, but this time you don't care so much, so you draw half-assed pictures and block letters.

In graduate school (i.e. now for me), you really, REALLY think you're done. You even steer clear of clubs, just in case... but now there's a new secret club, it's called a conference, and they've got poster sessions, and you think that it'd be a good idea to share with the "world" what you've been working on for months... and out come the colored paper and crayons... not. I wish.

Nope, graduate-style posters for a conference are a whole other beast. They are computer-generated, beautiful, large sheets of paper. They still have pictures, and graphs (they just take forever to place in the right spot, oh how I miss scissors and glue!). They still have color schemes (but you can't really quite tell what color they will actually be once printed). New additions: math formulas, references, flow charts, and many, many more hours invested.

Any guesses as to what I've been up to this week in the office? Here's a hint: I'm entering a _____ for computational math day next week!

Fruit Squared

This is a shout out to an amazing recipe I made last night from my newest cookbook, Company's Coming's "Fruit Squared". (Yes, this appeals the the geeky math nerd that lives inside of me...)

Gold-Dust Lemon Bars

BOTTOM LAYER

1 1/4 cups Flour

1/2 cup Softened Butter

3 tbsp Sugar

1/4 tsp Salt

TOP LAYER

3 Eggs

1 cup Sugar

1/4 cup Lemon Juice (takes about 1 1/2 lemons)

3 tbsp Flour

1 tsp Grated lemon zest (do this before getting the juice)

1/2 tsp Baking powder

Bottom Layer: Beat first 4 ingredients until smooth. Press firmly in greased 9''x9'' pan. Bake in 350F over for 20 minutes until just golden.

Top Layer: Whisk all 6 ingredients in small bowl until smooth. Pour over bottom layer. Bake for 20 minutes until set.

EAT! It's really really good. I've finished half my pan already, and I finished making them quite late last night.

Also, funny story about why I decided to bake these: I was procrastinating and watching You-Tube videos, when one of those annoying commercials came on. It was something to do with yogurt that tasted like cheese cake and that made you loose weight. What I got out of it was an incredible urge to eat cheese cake. I then looked up recipes online and decided that it was too much work, so I settled on baking lemon squares. I was very glad that they turned out to be good! :)

Whitecaps

Yesterday, S., M., A. and I went to see a Whitecaps game. For you non-Vancouverites, the Whitecaps is Vancouver's soccer team (as I found out a few days ago...). We got an amazing deal thanks to S.: ticket, hot dog, fries, and pop for 25$! The stadium was right by my house too, which was nice for the commute home.

The game was exciting, the hot dog somewhat disappointing, the mini donuts purchased at half-time were divine, and I was feeling very Vancouverite-tish indeed. It's nice to be in a crowd, cheering for your home team. I don't know why I felt as if it was a rite of passage, but I did. And now, I feel as if I can finally say that "I'm from Vancouver".

Strange that my last post was also about loving this city. Stranger still that this seems so important to me. But there you have it! Come visit me, you non-Vancouverites... and I'll convert you (if it's the summer, in the winter the rain will keep you running).

Surprisingly Vancouver day

Today was a very good day. A very good Vancouver-themed day. Full of activities and food, most of which I never would have thought that I would enjoy before moving to Vancouver. Truthfully, I don't think that Vancouver really has anything to do with it, time does. People change, I change, and its just easier to see such changes when I can cut my life up into chunks... and what better chunks than cross-country moves?

The day started with getting a pedicure with S. It was her first "real" pedicure, and it was the first time that I was paying for one myself. We really enjoyed the pampering, foot rubs, leg massages, and little white flowers that appeared on our big toes!

We then proceeded to an ice cream heaven: Marble Slab I think it was called. You choose your ice cream, your mix-ins, and then mix it all up on a marble slab (hence the name) before putting it in a freshly made waffle cone. Scrumptious to say the least. Now, my enjoying ice cream while sitting on a beach is not a new activity in itself. The surprise came half-way through eating: I was full, and really, there was just too much ice cream, and it was just too sweet!?! Good grief. I'm loosing my high tolerance to sugar.

The food surprises did not end there. I had been invited to my aunt and uncle's house for supper: barbecued prawns and sockeye salmon collars. On a previous visit to Vancouver, during my undergrad, I remember visiting with my aunt and uncle and eating B.'s yummy barbecued prawns. Since then, prawns and lobster have been tied as my favorite food. But today, the sockeye salmon collars were even better than the prawns! Gasp! Me, Aki, who used to snub my nose at all cooked fish, ate so much fish that I didn't even have room for E.'s lovely berry cobbler!

So there we have it. People change, I change, my taste buds change... and I love Vancouver!

Blueberries

At the beginning of the summer, I decided to volunteer at the Pocket Farmer's Market up on Burnaby mountain. I thought that it would be fun to meet new people and to spend time outside. On my first day I learned that there was another perk to being a volunteer at the market: I get to buy things at wholesale price! Which means that I get 20-50% off everything we sell there!

All this to say that on Wednesday, I dragged myself out of bed (I was/am very sick with a ghastly summer head cold) and to school for the sole purpose to buying blueberries. It was the first week that they were ready and I was having visions of blueberry smoothies. These visions came from my new-found love for Booster Juice.

I had been carefully avoiding buying any of their smoothies, mainly because they are expensive, but also because they serve them in Styrofoam cups. (which by the way they have an "information sheet" about saying that Styrofoam is better for the environment than paper or plastic cups!? One of their main points was that there's less Styrofoam in dumps than plastic, so that must mean that Styrofoam creates less pollution!?! umm... logic?) But a few weeks ago I had one, I can't remember why, though I seem to recall that I justified it to myself because of the protein booster that will help me build muscles for dragonboating (yes, rationalization, I know) and now I'm hooked. Especially by their "Berry Cream Sensation". Last time I was ordering one, I looked at the fruit list, and the only special item that I didn't put in my smoothies at home was blueberries. Hence the blueberry mission.

It's been two days now, and three attempts at recreating the famed "Berry Cream Sensation", no luck. I think that I've finally figured out why: I don't add sugar, ice cream, or any sugar-substitute... so my smoothies are just not as good. On the plus side, they are probably healthier, and definitely cheaper. And reusable glass cups that I can wash out are definitely more eco-friendly than Styrofoam cups!

Nanaimo Regatta

To quote a fellow teammate C. "This was probably the best weekend I've had... well in at least 4 years!"

I concur. And I've had amazing weekends, like just the one last week camping. But there was something unique about sharing the energy, excitement, and spirit of another 20-odd teammates. After coming together for only 4 practices, I was truly surprised to see how well we all got along. (Half of Team Nanaimo was from Concord Pacific Flying Dragons One, and the other half was from my original team CP Flying Dragons Too.)

First race, first place. Second race, second place by half a second. This set our tone for the rest of the weekend: "No Frickin' Way!". Still, our times are good enough to put us in the semi-finals for Diamond A division, second from the top and a lot higher than our original goals were! Time to celebrate, we are all off to the beer garden for the paddlers party. With the expection of a long Elvis impression bit, the night was amazing. If you'd have been there you would have seen a great circle of amazing dancers right at the front next to the stage having the time of their lives. That would have been us. Even while partying the team stayed together, danced together (lots of sweat sharing...), and drank together. All under a beautiful sky that went from sunny, to orange and pink sunset, to dark blue with stars.

Third race, we get hit on the right side by another boat, our steersman D. yells "Keep paddling" and we do, and bam! another first place finish, which puts us in the final for Diamond A division. Then, it's time for the last race, if we place anywhere but last we get a medal. There's No Frickin' Way we're going to loose this one. F., our team manager, tells us to paddle angry. And we do! On the finish, our drummer M. sees that we are loosing ground and starts bellowing No Frickin' Way over and over again and she feels our boat surge ahead. And guess what? Yet another first place finish!! This time for GOLD.

Now unfortunately, when planning my bus ticket down to Victoria I didn't leave time for a first place finish and an award ceremony. So I was off to the bus depot before getting my medal. Luckily my fellow teammate P. has my medal, and I plan to where it for a whole day once I finally do get my hands on it!

Here's a tease though: Our jersey, our medal. Thanks to Herbert Yen for the picture!

Summer is here!

15 degrees of heat up from from yesterday to today. Ouf!

Well I guess that after all that complaining about being cold over the weekend, I shouldn't be groaning now. Summer is finally here, and making itself known. I felt it especially when out in False Creek paddling. The sun was glaring down on us, and I couldn't seem to find my hat in my rush to leave the house this morning, so my eyes received a beating. Still, it was nice to feel its heat on my skin, and on my face.

Nanaimo on Friday, it'll be a hot weekend! Should be fun! :)

Chilliwack

Camping!! :D

It's Monday, and I hurt... My legs hurt, my left bum cheek especially hurts, my feet hurt, and strangely my left tricep hurts too! But it's all worth it: I got to go exploring out of Vancouver last weekend!

On Friday, J. and V. came to pick me up early. Well, not that early, but I was up much earlier than they arrived, like a child on Christmas morning! I kept busy by packing, cooking, and deciding to bake cookies at the last minute (from batter that I found in my freezer that had been there since Christmas! Somewhat questionable...). We then made our way to Chilliwack Lake Provincial Park. After a slight scare (there was a sign saying that the campground was full), we found a good spot: lot #1 (we're number one!). I got "le mammouth" out, and I was happy.

We then decided to hike up to Greendrop Lake: 10.4 km return, Elev. Gain 354m according to the park sign. On the way, we passed by Lindeman Lake, which was simply gorgeous. It had blue water, really really blue. Clear, and freezing. After that the trail became like an obstacle course, going over rock falls, through mud, and over rivers. Greendrop Lake wasn't as impressive as Lindeman was, but the scenery was still breathtaking. The evening brought the knowledge that it costs 7.50$ for a tiny bundle of dry wood. Luckily our neighbors were prepared and had ample logs that they very generously shared with us. So we were able to keep warm around the fire, and J. played my mandolin, way better than I can. It kind of motivated me to continue my practice. Perhaps tomorrow!

The next day we dedicated to another hike, this time to Radium Lake: 16 km return, Elev. Gain 900m according to its sign. Luckily is wasn't any higher, there was plenty of snow at the 900m level! Now that was a hike! It seemed to get steeper and steeper, and also colder and colder on the way up. But we were very proud to get there, and feasted on onigiri at the top. Our big scare on the way down was a close encounter with a black bear!! Yikes! Now, luckily for me I wasn't in the front, so I didn't see it. After that we did a lot of talking and singing old camp songs.

J. at the end of the Radium Lake hike. Any higher and we'd be in the clouds, and knee deep in snow... in July?!

Sunday morning we were all understandably tired, and so we decided to take a break from the hiking and went berry picking instead! We went to a small farm on the way back and got our hands on raspberries and strawberries. They are now all washed and the strawberries are separated from their tops, frozen in my freezer, awaiting my very first independent jam attempt. More on that once it gets done.

V.'s wondering where the path to Greendrop Lake is amidst all the rivers! Hiking's fun when it's part of an obstacle course!

Out of Hibernation

Hello folks! And happy Canada Day!

It's been months, I know.

I've been thinking for the past few weeks that I wanted to blog, but then I kept waiting for a great momentous occasion to send me back to write my first returning post. Alas, no luck. But then I got motivated once more by a fellow dragon boat (yes I'm paddling now!! More on that later I'm sure) team member M. She had recently added me on Facebook and decided to check out my blog.... and was disappointed to see: no recent posts. This was very motivating for me because it meant that even though I haven't been checking my blog, perhaps others are!

So I'm back!

I decided to write this morning in particular because when I woke up 30 minutes before my alarm (I was excited to be hiking up the Chief in Squamish with another friend M.), I tried to stay in bed to fall back asleep. When I found I couldn't, I found myself thinking

"Mom always said that resting is almost as good as sleeping, so I should just lie here and rest for the next half-hour."

Which led me to think: when, if ever, will I stop thinking things along the lines "Mom/Dad always said..."? Your thoughts?

So voilà! The chronic of the journey into adulthood is reopened.

[As a side note, a few minutes after thinking I should lie there and rest, I was up and about. I wonder if that's remnant teenage rebellion, or just general antsyness to get going?]